Associate Conservator, Objects

Esther Chao joined the museum in 2006 and focuses on modern and contemporary sculpture, as well as installation art. She oversees the documentation and intake of new acquisitions and examines and treats works for exhibition and loan. She executed the research and treatment of Cry Dragon/Cry Wolf: The Ark of Genghis Khan (1996), which included more than 90 sheepskin floats, for Cai Guo-Qiang's 2008 retrospective in New York, and she traveled to the Beijing venue as the conservation liaison. She was the conservator for the exhibitions John Chamberlain: Choices (2012) and Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (2011) at the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Prior to joining the Guggenheim, Chao specialized in ethnographic and archaeological materials and worked at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in object conservation at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, and held internships at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chao received BAs in art history and anthropology from the University of Arizona and an MA in art history and a Certificate in Conservation from New York University, Institute of Fine Arts.